My name is Matthew, I'm 17 years old (18 this August) and graduated from high school this year. I'm currently attempting to pursue interests dealing with game development but I'm not sure where I should turn.

I'm attempting to focus on online programs/courses because they appeal to me for many reasons: They don't require me to move to a different state and/or area, the learning environment would be much more relaxed for me for personal reasons, and overall I feel that it would be best for me.

However, I do have many important questions:

Has anyone had any success with these? I know, I know: Most of the time, it's better to actually be in a classroom - but I'm still willing to give "distance learning" a chance.

One of the first options that immediately caught my eye was DeVry's "Game & Simulation Programming" program in which you can earn a Bachelor's degree in that within 3 years (instead of 4 years as normal.) However, the more I researched it, the more bad things I began hearing about it. It still sounds amazingly fun, but I have a bad feeling it won't be worth it.

I also have several other options to help get me into the game development field, or at least headed in that general direction:

There are many other options out there I'm sure (in terms of distance learning), but these are the only ones I could really come up with. A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science would teach me plenty of programming and help me out a lot, but I'm still not 100% sure which choice I will/should make.

So could some of you give feedback/suggestions on my decisions and "distance learning" in general?